The Dublin City Council discussion on Monday descended into conspiracy theories and heated debate after the vote on whether to rename Herzog Park was tabled, following legal issues and intervention from the central government.
“The proposal should be withdrawn in its entirety and not proceeded with,” said Prime Minister Micheal Martin. He added that going ahead with the decision to rename Herzog Park would erase the distinctive and rich contribution to Irish life of the Jewish community, and that such denial of history would “without any doubt, be seen as antisemitic.”
It transpired that the original motion brought by the South East Area Committee was simply seeking clarification over whether the naming of Herzog Park in 1995 met the legal requirements at the time. This then – wrongly – became a vote on renaming the park, which would have been in contravention of legal procedure. Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare announced that the process is not yet in place for such renaming to occur.
The Herzog Park renaming proposal was not the only one. A second motion proposed the renaming of Diamond Park in North Inner City to honor Terence Wheelock, who died mysteriously in 2005 after being taken into Garda (police) custody.
This was the focus of the meeting, with many councilors expressing upset that the furore around Herzog Park had implicated the renaming of the unrelated Diamond Park.
Accusations against 'Zionist lobby'
For many of the councilors present, the tabling of both votes was unacceptable, as were accusations of antisemitism leveled at them over their desire to rename Herzog Park. Many were also angry at the “unprecedented” and “outrageous” intervention of Martin, who they felt should not have spoken on local matters.
Blaming Israel for the situation was also a significant undercurrent of the hour-long meeting (all of which was watched by The Jerusalem Post).
Pat Dunne of the United Left Party told Lord Mayor Ray McAdam that if this were just the motion about Diamond Park, there wouldn’t have been an issue, and that “whatever phone calls were made to our CEO probably emanated from Israeli intelligence forces attached to the IDF because they are active in every issue that comes up in relation to Palestine. Trace it all the way back, and you’ll find that’s the source.”
Dunne was not alone in these views. Ciarán Ó Meachair of Sinn Féin told the meeting, “This was a full court press by the Zionist lobby,” adding, “they will not win this.”
He also said that Herzog Park should be renamed because “Herzog commanded soldiers who raped, murdered, and pillaged innocent civilians.”
Independent councilor Cieran Perry accused Martin of “carrying out the instructions of the Israeli lobby.” He, like many others, also expressed anger at the “slanderous accusation of antisemitism against those of us that support this motion.”
“Equating opposition to genocide – and the deliberate murder and starvation of children with antisemitism – does a serious disservice to Jewish people, and conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism damages the battle against actual antisemitism,” Perry said.
People Before Profit's Conor Reddy concurred. “I totally reject the charges of antisemitism that have been leveled at myself, voters, and campaigners. The renaming of Herzog Park is not about antisemitism. Chaim Herzog played a role in ethnic cleansing, in genocide, in racism, and apartheid. I don’t think we can honor such a person in our city.”
He said that the international reaction “calls into question the historical logic of Zionism that extends far beyond what’s happened in Gaza, and it shows the state of Israel itself is illegitimate.”
Vincent Jackson said that “whatever the hurt that the small Jewish community have in Ireland, unfortunately, it’s insurmountable compared to what it is for the families and for the generations to come in [Palestine.]”
“The issue of naming a park after a person who spent some of his time in Dublin, who then decided to travel to Palestine to join a terrorist Zionist organization named the Hagana, to work with the British army in crushing the Palestinians when they rose up in 1936, who then rejoined the Hagana to take part in the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians during the Nakba, and then as the first military governor of the West Bank and east Jerusalem forcibly expelled 200,000 Palestinians to Jordan: That person should never have had the honor of having one of our parks named after him,” said Councillor John Lyons.
Sinn Féin’s Daithi Doolan said that the park should be renamed because Herzog was “implicated in terrorism, crimes against humanity, in driving Palestinians from their homes,” and that the park should be renamed after a non-controversial member of the Jewish community in Ireland.
'Hurting the Jewish community'
However, multiple councilors supported the withdrawal of the vote, saying that the park should not be renamed as it would negatively impact the Jewish community.
Green councilor Michael Pidgeon supported the general cohesion in Ireland regarding the “suffering and the genocide of the people in Palestine,” but said that “anyone with an ounce of sympathy or thought can see its a difficult time to be a Jew in Ireland, and park names are symbolic, and I don’t think this is a wise choice.”
“The Jewish community is a tiny community,” he said, adding, “We should listen to the Jews of Ireland, they are the experts.”
Dermot Lacey (Labour), Patrick Kinsella (Fine Gael), Rory Hogan (Fianna Fáil), and Malachy Steenson (Independent) also said that Herzog Park was an important part of Ireland’s history, as well as the history of Jews in the country.
“Renaming would compromise the existence of generations of Jews in Ireland,” said Kinsella (Fine Gael).
Hogan (Fianna Fáil) noted that there are very few public spaces that acknowledge the contribution of the Jewish people to Dublin’s history and culture.
Steenson raised the issue of trying to rewrite history, saying that “by changing the name of it, you’re changing and putting today’s values on something that happened many years ago.”
Fine Gael’s Emma Blain and Fianna Fáil’s Daryl Barron focused on the Jewish community’s hurt, noting that members of the community had written to them and that this hurt should be acknowledged.
“The 1995 naming was not just one name, it was to reflect the longstanding contribution of Dublin’s Jewish community,” said Colm O’Rourke of Fine Gael. “So, is it any wonder that the Jewish community in Dublin might see this as an attack on them over the last few days, not just the renaming, but that there was no proposal to rename it to a Jewish or Hebrew name? This is more than a park or green space. it’s directly beside Ireland’s only Jewish ethos guild.”
A handful of councilors refrained from speaking on the renaming specifically, instead focusing on how such a legal procedural error could occur, or condemning the involvement of the prime minister and the foreign minister.
“These initiatives come from our communities,” said Cat O’Driscoll of the Social Democrats. “We let them down by not putting the correct legislative procedures in place to meet their needs.”